In an effort to head off a backbench Lib Dem rebellion and expose a serious faultline within the coalition, ministers will include measures such as extra money for bursaries.

But Mr Gove said it would be wrong to force universities to meet recruitment targets.

"We are going to ask the very best universities who want to increase their fees above £6,000 - but only to £9,000, it is important to stress that that's the upper cap - that they work with us to demonstrate more imaginative ways in which they can ensure, working with schools, they will provide support for students from poorer backgrounds in going there," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

"It is right that we should ask more of them but it is wrong to say that we would impose quotas."

Research conducted by the National Union of Students and HSBC has found that nearly eight in 10 young people would be put off university if fees went up to £10,000, and 70 per cent by a rise to £7,000.

Graduates would pay back loans at nine per cent of their income once they were earning £21,000, at a rate of interest equal to the Government's cost of borrowing, which could leave them facing many years of debt.

University students and lecturers will stage a protest in London next week against higher fees and to demand that Lib Dem MPs stick to their pledge.

Mr Gove played down the research suggesting that higher fees would put off applicants.

"I believe that it won't have that effect. I believe that people will make a rational decision on the benefits that accrue to them as a result of taking a university degree," he said.

And a £110 million fund would be directed at what he said was the main factor in the low proportion of those from deprived areas entering higher education - poor state schooling.

"The principal problem is in our schools," he said.

"We still have a system which, unfortunately, for far too many students means deprivation is destiny, which is why one of the other things we are announcing today is a new £110 million fund in order to help turn around our weakest and under-performing schools."

NUS president Aaron Porter said: "The Government has already announced its intentions - wash their hands of responsibility for higher education by removing almost all funding for universities - and it seems they will attempt to continue their vicious attack on those that want a better education by passing all of the cost on to students and asking vice-chancellors to take none of the strain."

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU), said: "The extra fees being forced on students and their families is money universities are being denied by Government. It's a simple case of robbing the public to plug a Government funding gap."